I actually like the heat. When it's like 105 outside and dry, I'm outside working in my yard. I just hate sweating even just a little. It feels gross, and I can't help but feel like I smell bad when I sweat.

When I used to work outside, I used to have to make sure I had a change of clothes with me so I could switch into something dry at lunch. Sometimes, that wouldn't be enough.

I moved to Arizona because of my dislike for sweating. The dry air evaporates sweat more quickly, so, to me, it feels a lot more comfortable outside. I'll take the 114 that it was when I got home last night over the 80 degree muggy crap that we used to get regularly back home.

After a spell of ass-weather we are currently in a weird mid-summer cool break. It's that end of summer feeling, like it's time to go back to school. I don't like it. I hate the ass-weather but I also don't like July feeling like early September. Nothing is ever good enough.

Read in the news this morning that we are about to be visited by some meteorological condition known as a "heat dome". Sounds bad. In the Midwest you guys will be under the dome too, and if that's not bad enough you will also have to suffer through the "corn sweats" which is when the moisture from corn crops produces unbearable humidity. Corn sweats is probably also the name of a condition dealt with by podiatrists.

I lived 37 years in the corn belt, and I never heard the term "corn sweats" before. Perhaps that is because what we experienced, affectionately known as sugar beet transpiration, is far worse?

We grow beans, soybeans, sugar beets, and corn in the northern plains. Now I don't have any quantified data, but I have spent a lot of time in the fields. My experience tells me that sugar beets are the worst for giving off humidity, and that is probably why eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota tend to be among the most humid places in the nation.

FWIW, grass also transpires, and that is probably the biggest reason why living in Phoenix during the summer isn't complete hell. We don't have much grass here.

The US record for heat index is in Moorhead, MN just a few years ago (I think it was 130 degrees...I know that the dew point was pushing 90 that day). There was a lot of controversy because some meteorologists didn't think it should be counted as official due to the fact that it was pretty obvious that the humidity was caused by sugar beet transpiration. In my opinion...we Fargoans and Moorheadians have had to deal with that crappy sugar beet transpiration for decades. It's not any less humid because the humidity is coming from the predominant crops, and I can certainly vouch for the fact that it was really, really bad out that day. I tried playing 18 holes at a golf course that is less than a mile from where the official reading was taken that day, and I didn't make it past 9. My partner, who was from Phoenix, left after the third hole.

As long as you stay out of the sun as much as possible, the summers in Phoenix are far more tolerable than the summers in Fargo.

I collect rainwater to keep my lawn watered. I'm looking for a way to efficiently collect the water that goes down the drain as well. For instance, when you are running the shower and waiting for the water to get hot. I'd like to be able to collect that water.

I live in the desert, and I hate wasting water. I do have a small amount of trepidation, though, when it comes to repurposing all gray water due to the stuff that is in it. If you live somewhere that gets a lot of rain, that stuff gets dissolved in the rainwater and runs off. In the desert, that might be the only water hitting my lawn for months at a time, so it collects in the soil. That's the whole reason why I started collecting rainwater in the first place...because it helps to dissolve the chlorine and fluoride in the tap water so that it doesn't sit and collect in the soil.

Right now we are under the following alerts: severe t-storm warning/watch, flash flood warning, heat advisory, air quality alert and to top it off a record temperature report in nearby Newark. Anyone who gets off on national weather service alerts is coming right now.

Our highs are supposed to drop significantly starting on Saturday, and it's supposed to last for more than a week. Highs in the mid 90s are kind of unheard of this time of year.

Of course, notice I didn't say anything about the lows. The lows are supposed to stay the same, and guess what that means?

Dew point was 68 his morning. That's supposed to climb into the mid 70s this weekend. I'm not happy about this at all.

Welcome to the Monsoon. We will probably get a reprieve in mid September.

On a brighter note, this summer has been absolutely beautiful so far. People complain about the heat, but I'm the guy who spends most of his time outside in it. 114 in my backyard shade yesterday, and my tree stump is getting close to halfway done.

Yup. Summer took a turn for the worse. August is truly the only month I hate in Phoenix. It got humid on August 2. And then it rained. A lot. And then it rained some more. I got 3" where I live in less than an hour. Keep in mind this is Phoenix where there is no drainage. It was over 100 degrees at 5:00. At 6:00, it had dropped to 70, and it stayed that way until 7:00. At 8:00, it was back up to 94 degrees. I don't know if I've ever experienced a temperature increase of almost 25 degrees when it's freaking dark outside.

I had no flood damage. My cul-de-sac is on high ground, and my lot is on the highest part of the block (I found that out last night when my backyard was the last one to fill with water, though that could have been partly due to the 110 gallons my rain barrels collected). I did, however, have water dripping out of my a/c intake vent. It was dark out by the time the rain stopped on Tuesday, and I ended up having to work a 16 hour day yesterday. Tonight was the first time I could go up on the roof to see what was going on, and I discovered a crack in the caulking that seals the intake vent to the a/c unit. While I was up there, it started raining again.

I have an HVAC guy coming in the morning. Hopefully, the $80 trip charge will cover a little caulking. And hopefully, he will also be able to verify whether or not the water remained contained in the vent. Otherwise, I have to call a GC, and I really don't want to do that.

Have I mentioned it's humid? We had a dew point high of 74 yesterday, and the high temperature was 104 (though they didn't happen at the same time). That's fucking ridiculous for Phoenix. The dew point was back in the 60s today. It sucks, but at least it's bearable.

The HVAC guy took my unit completely apart and inspected all of the innards. He found an internal air leak in addition to cracked caulk. He's 100% certain that the leak is fixed, and he's 100% certain that the moisture was confined to the vent. Total cost: $190. That's a big score as far as I'm concerned.

I got my oleander tree out of the ground yesterday, too. Been working on it about a month. The stump weighs about 150 lbs, and I figured out how to get it to the curb somehow (never want to do that again). Got the hole mostly filled in before it started raining again. About 20 minutes with a shovel, about 30 minutes with an aerator, and about 30 minutes with a bag of sand, and my yard will be read for overseeding. That's a month and a half away, but it's way too late in the season to plant Bermuda grass.

Speaking of Bermuda grass, the rains last week turned my yard from a desert into a jungle. All of the grass seed sprouted over the weekend, and there is a lot of green out there right now. Makes me wish I had gotten the stump out a few days earlier because I'm sure I killed a lot of it shoveling dirt back into the hole.

It has been a good summer. People say I'm insane when I tell them that I like it when it's about 105 degrees and dry. I simply cannot work outside when it was like it was today...about 92 and muggy as crap (dew point never made it to 70 today, but it still sucks in the high 60s).

I can't handle the humid heat. I'm too mollycoddled when it comes to weather. I've been in that crap in both Orlando and Tokyo and you feel like there's this big wet blanket draped over you, feel like you need to take a shower 15 minutes after you just got out of the shower. Can't imagine playing or hitting bawlz in that shit.

After working outside all summer in the Phoenix heat, I think I'm pretty much done working on my backyard. The grass just has to do its part and grow. I threw the last of my Bermuda out after I got done filling in my tree hole. After my first failings with growing grass in Arizona dirt, I've been very meticulous about properly thatching, aerating, and dressing the seeds. All I'm trying to accomplish at this point is not having to plant any seed next Spring.